Columbia Student Says Policemen Vandalized Buildings, Classrooms

(Steven J. Peyster, a Columbia freshman who stayed seven days in the Mathematics building and two and a half hours hiding under a sink after the police had cleared the building of demonstrators, told this story to a CRIMSON interviewer.)

When I climbed into the sink cabinet, the room was immaculate. We had piled up chairs and tied them together for a barricade and taken shelves from the library to block the windows; but the chairs were metal and the windows hadn't been broken when we were there, so the shelves weren't damaged. I could see very little from the cabinet, so all I know is what I heard.

The police came in and started going through the food supply that the committee had organized. They were saying things like, "Have a slice of liberated balogna" and "Have a liberated orange." Then one of them said, "This is a nice jacket, let's see what's in the pockets." He noted that there was no money.

Doors Hacked Open

They went through the shelves and other cabinets with hammers, hacking the doors open. I could hear the pounding and the smashing and crashing. I was really sweating that they would start crashing through the sink. They used the sink the whole time. I'm surprised they didn't look under it because they were breaking into everything else.

You could hear the crack of doors breaking and the smashing of glass. There were four guys who were making a lot of noise in the attic. You could also hear the cops wandering around in the halls.

I knew from hearing the Columbia radio and the police radio that were in the room that the cops had been breaking down doors and cabinets for at least one and a half hours.

Climbed Out

I climbed out at 6:30 a.m. while the police were forming a ring around the building. They had torn down the barricade; some chairs were wrecked; solid doors had been chopped through; they had completely screwed up a Xerox machine.

I took the red flag off the building and walked down the steps with some students who were touring the building. When they got to the first floor I stepped out past the police guard.